Fresh Blog Archive

Posts for July, 2007

The former director of Inova, what was perhaps Milwaukee's most important contemporary art institution, is facing massive staff revolt in his current post, according to a London newspaper.

Today, Doroshenko is at the helm of one of the largest contemporary art centers in Europe, the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead.

According to a July 4th article in the Times of London, he's been accused of "bullying" and sidelining others. As many as 46 employees are believed to have signed a document protesting, the article stated.

The document was submitted to the center's chairman, who has commissioned an outside review of the situation, which will be released at a board meeting next week.

You may remember Gary Weidner, the Racine artist, whose 15 large-scale, abstract paintings were sold on the big screen by Jennifer Aniston in the film "The Break-up." (Here's an older post about that little endeavor).

Anyway, Weidner, who studied at UW-Parkside, recently designed and created a bass guitar for Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer), bassist for Spinal Tap for their recent reunion. The reunion was at Live Earth in London, an event designed to draw attention to the issue of Global Warming.

Shearer tapped Lakeland basses for an over-the-top, five-string bass that would depict the political point in a less than subtle way -- a planet exploding in flames. The bass company, in turn, tapped Weidner, who now lives in Chicago for the job.

Spinal Tap was, of course, the subject of the 1984 mock-rockumentary "This is Spinal Tap," in which documentary filmmaker Marti DiBergi (Rob Reiner, in reality) chronicle's the tour of the ill-fated, heavy metal band. The "band" continues to have cult status these years later.

Here's the YouTube "Spinal Tap Returns," in the spirit of the "This Is..."

Temporary Contemporary, the city's newest contemporary art space, now has a blog. It's filled with loads of pix of openings and the art. See if you can spot moi, my friend Kim and my significant other Ken on one of them.

The US Consulate in Peshawar has proposed, according to the Art Newspaper, that US museums partner with Pakistani institutions to promote understanding of pre-Islamic history in the Islamic fundamentalist Northwest Frontier Province bordering Afghanistan, for example.

The American Association of Museums is partnering with the State Department, which bodes well, I think, for the legitimacy of the projects that are ultimately selected. On the one hand, this says something about the power of art. On the other, there's a bit of danger in viewing art as government-sponsored propaganda. This will be worth watching, certainly.

Bus shelters slated for removal around Madison's Capitol Square were given over to the imaginations of artists for a single day. Their creations will remain up for the month of July.

It's a temporary project, which, again, is something I'm a fan of. Projects that pop up and disappear get seen in a different way that those more permanent ones. It opens the door for a sense of surprise and an ethic of experimentation, which can be wonderful or horrid, depending, of course.

On the whole, the "Destination" project in Madison is quite nice. It was thoughtfully curated and seven artists were selected -- four of whom are Milwaukeeans.

This is perhaps my favorite of the set, by John Riepenhoff, the young curator who runs the Green Gallery in Riverwest. It's a simple, graphic gesture, which reads "YOU ARE HERE" from the inside but, because of the positioning and reversal of letters reads "JOY" on the outside.

Remember my post from yesterday about the US Department dipping its toe into "cultural diplomacy," funding partnerships between US museums and foreign institutions for the sake of promoting foreign policies?

It arrived in the form of two boxes, about the size of big art books, wrapped in plastic bags and held level by a curator. It and he showed up at the airport around lunch time on a flight, it just so happens, that someone I was there to pick up was arriving on too.

If you ever wondered how art travels, this is how it sometimes happens. The critical part is that it is couriered by a museum professional.

David Procuniar, of the Procuniar Workshop in New York, deplaned from his Midwest flight and was met by Annemarie Sawkins, a curator at the Haggerty Museum of Art.

David will speak in a few hours, at 11:30 a.m., at the Haggerty about Bourgeois' recent work, providing a preview of the show about to go on view at the Haggerty.

I'm hoping to get myself to two openings tonight. And I do recommend them.

The first is at Temporary Contemporary, the newest contemporary art space in Milwaukee. For the summer, TC is doing a two person show every two weeks and is planted in the old Avalon Theater, 2473 S. Kinnickinnic Ave., in Bay View. A reception tonight from 6 to 9 p.m. marks the opening of a show by the artist-couple that owns the place, Dorota Biczel Nelson and Keith Nelson.

Also opening tonight at Hotcakes Gallery is a two person show featuring the work of Annie Aube from Anchorage and Michelle Sherkow of Baltimore. If you think embroidery is just for grandmum's, think again.

Imagine stepping inside of one of the most famous and debated paintings in all of art history. By this time next week, you'll be able to do exactly that at the Milwaukee Art Museum thanks to a local collector, who purchased an artwork that's soon to be installed in the modern gallery.

(You heard rumors about this move here some weeks back).

We ran a front page story about this particular piece by Iraqi-born contemporary artist Wafaa Bilal last fall. Bilal's video version of Manet masterpiece, "Bar at the Folies-Berg??re," features a barmaid that responds to what you do in front of her. And, you -- yes you -- appear in the mirror behind her, too.

(Look in the upper, left image above for a peek at Wafaa appearing in the mirror).

Once persecuted for producing art that opposed the government of Sadaam Hussein, Wafaa escaped to the United States in 1992. He recently spent thirty days of self-imposed confinement at Chicago???s FLATFILEgalleries, exposing himself to more than 60,000 shots from a high-velocity paintball gun in order to comment on the pervasive danger currently facing Iraqi citizens.

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